


In Fourteen Million Futures, it's Hard Not to Know Someone

by ChangeTheCircumstances



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers: Infinity War (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Outcome from Avengers 4, Alternate Universe, Gen, M/M, PTSD, Showing why Stephen made the choice (you know which one), Stephen has a heart, The Avengers: Infinity War Compliant, it depends on what happens in Avengers 4, kind of fix-it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-01
Updated: 2018-05-01
Packaged: 2019-04-30 18:25:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14502882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChangeTheCircumstances/pseuds/ChangeTheCircumstances
Summary: Stephen won't risk the future on the bickering and arguing of others over which plan is better. No, he needs certainty so he opens the Eye, intent on finding the path that will save them all.





	In Fourteen Million Futures, it's Hard Not to Know Someone

**Author's Note:**

> Only seen Infinity War once so if I got one of the quoted lines wrong, apologies. Anyways, I've been thinking of this idea for a while and I couldn't help but write it. Also, I'm almost done with the semester meaning I'll finally be able to jump back into writing again and I figured I might as well do a quick one-shot to get into the groove. Thanks for reading!

It doesn’t matter if Stephen agrees more with Starks’ or the aliens’ plans. He can’t go on faith and expectations.

As the others bicker back and forth, Stephen sits down, unlocking the Eye as he goes forward to the first future. He needs certainty. There will be a best path to take, one which will assure their victory, and Stephen means to find it rather than just trusting the arguing going on between his reluctant companions.

The first future spins by. Thanos clenches his fist and reality shifts. Stephen can feel himself no longer connected to magic, to his abilities, and like that Thanos is crushing his neck. Stephen pushes on past his death. This isn’t like Dormammu, a perfect loop that Stephen has locked into. And existing past his own death? That’s unnatural even for the Time Stone.

It’s like he’s rotting from the inside but he keeps at it. He has to see if his sacrifice might help to stop Thanos. If his sacrifice is the only way, then so be it. He’ll try other paths but he needs to see if this one will work.

In the long run it doesn’t though. Thanos prevails, those that oppose him die or turn to dust. They are long since past the point of hope, there’s no uprising against him, no new group of heroes, of protectors, and so Stephen finally pulls his rotting soul back to the start, to Titan. He starts again.

The first fifty futures he focuses only on himself really. There are several where he lives, many more where he doesn’t. There are times when Thanos doesn’t immediately get the stone and other times when he takes it from Stephen in seconds. It doesn’t matter though, in the long term they lose. Even if they fail early on, it’s not temporary. Stephen pushes through years upon years in each future to be sure but no…Thanos still wins.

It’s on the fifty-first future that he just runs. He abandons Stark and the kid and the rest of them without a second thought. He does what he’d planned to do in the beginning and gets as far away from Thanos as he possibly can.

Stephen gets old, the gray spreads. And then with shadows as friends, Stephen is taken before he can fight, tortured in ways that he bet Ebony Maw wishes he could have done, and in the end, Thanos crushes his skull and gets the Time Stone anyways.

He tries to run again, choosing different paths and making new plans, but each one fails. Whatever the solution is, it has to be found on Titan. It’s not in running away.

Stephen reluctantly returns. He again tries to fight Thanos, only this time he starts to watch the others, to see how their actions could potentially change the results.

He’s on the six hundred and forty-eighth future when he asks questions that don’t immediately pertain to plans on how to stop Thanos. He does it to see if maybe the answer lies in a small, seemingly insignificant change. That’s why he starts to ask questions, at least at first, but as he finally gets past his millionth future, unexpected side effects begin to occur.

Stephen knows them. No matter what future he picks, they still see him as he is, their perception never really changes, but Stephen _knows_ them now.

Peter Parker.

Mantis.

Drax.

Peter Quill.

Nebula, the blue one that later appears.

They aren’t just reluctant companions. Though to them, they’re only giving him small pieces of seemingly insignificant information, Stephen can piece together all that they say.

The deep bonds between the people, their friends and family, their hopes and dreams, their pasts and fears. Stephen sees it all. And Tony…

The moment Stephen finally started watching everyone else besides himself, he noted how Tony died each time. Sometimes it was due to a direct hit from Thanos, but more often it was because he sacrificed himself to save another life. Especially the kid’s. No way was Peter Parker actually Tony’s son. Whether Stephen would have wanted to or not, he’s pretty sure the media would have made sure everyone knew Tony had a surprise son. No, they weren’t related by blood, but Stephen now saw a new side to Tony.

And when had he started calling Stark, Tony? When had he stopped thinking of one of the aliens as the antenna one, and begun thinking of her as Mantis? Stephen couldn’t know for sure. He just knew he was starting to care far more than he ever expected.

Tony saves his life several times. If there’s a chance, Stephen always asks why. The words change but the meaning behind them doesn’t. It basically boils down to one thing: Stephen is worth saving. It doesn’t matter that he clearly annoys Tony, that both their egos easily clash. Tony doesn’t hesitate to save him even after Stephen told him he wouldn’t necessarily do the same. Tony doesn’t hesitate to save anyone, even Drax who he’s known for even less time than Stephen.

When Stephen feels like he’s tried every choice he could have made, he finally starts to realize that perhaps saving the universe doesn’t revolve around him. Instead, he starts influencing those around him, hoping that they’ll do something specific that could set everything right.

Stephen is ripped apart, made into atoms.

He has a moon thrown at him.

He’s sliced in half.

He’s crushed again and again.

He’s left alone and broken on the alien world with no way to get home and no way to save the universe.

It starts taking a toll. There’s a physical exhaustion that won’t leave his bones, even after he restarts the timeline. The mental toll only increases with each possible future.

“I can’t wait to see what modifications I can add to the Iron-Spider suit once I’m back home,” Peter says.

Stephen watches Thanos throw Peter into oblivion.

“I miss Rocket and Groot. I hope they’re alright,” murmurs Mantis.

When Thanos rips her in half, Stephen can feel her alien blood peppering his face.

“I will finally get revenge for my family and find peace with my new one,” Drax proudly announces.

His head falls at Stephen’s feet.

“We’re going to kick that purple grape’s ass and get Gamora back!” shouts Peter Quill.

Each time he finds out, each time Stephen has to re-watch him discover the woman he loved was murdered, it only becomes more and more heartbreaking.

“If we fail, we fail all of existence,” Tony whispers.

He’s right. And each time they do just that.

But despite all that, it’s the toll on Stephen’s soul, on his timeline, that is more painful than anything that he’s seen or been forced to repeat. He’s gone past his own death so many times, been through so many inconsistent futures of varying lengths, he can feel time splintering inside him. His soul is rotting. He’s dying on a level that Thanos could never cause.

On the six million, three thousand and forty two, sixtieth future, Stephen finally gets to see the one where he breaks. He sees what happens when he just rolls over and gives up.

His companions, he’s known them for millions of life-times whereas they’ve still only known him for a few hours at most.

Yet when he breaks, they don’t yell at him, they don’t call him useless and tell him to suck it up. They’re so kind because of course they would be. Though some very specific details still escape Stephen, he overall understands the overwhelming loss that the people around him have felt at one point or another. They’re broken, just like him, and they somehow manage to get him back on his feet.

They can’t all die. They can’t fail. There has to be a way!

Again and again he lives and dies and repeats.

On the ten million, eighty-fifth future, progress is made. At first, it seems just as bleak as the other futures. But there is one major difference.

Tony’s alive. For the first time in over ten million futures, he’s alive. Stephen quickly moves forward to see what happens next.

Time goes by and Stephen watches as the fight doesn’t die. It continues with Tony but just because there is hope doesn’t mean it is easier. The toll on Tony, the warped timelines that he passes through alone, the things he’s forced to endure, to see, Stephen’s heart can’t help but break and then—

They win. He’s alive again in this specific timeline. They all are. But he looks down and Tony—

“You knew,” Tony wheezes out. He doesn’t sound upset or even surprised really. “Well, you did say that you’d sacrifice me in an instant to save the Time Stone.”

And again, Stephen is forced to watch Tony die at his feet.

No! No this can’t be the only way! Tony’s already sacrificed so much and for it to end like this? Stephen doesn’t hesitate to move time back. He starts at square one.

The multiple futures keep piling up. He even tries telling them what’s going to happen, informs them of future events that could cause them to change their actions.

But it doesn’t work.

The deaths keep happening, the toll on himself only keeps increasing. There has to be another solution!

He eventually gets to the fourteenth million, eighth hundred and fifth future. It seems to start out much like that one future. Out of everyone, Tony survives on Titan but so does Nebula this time. And Stephen keeps going, keeps pushing, and—

This is it. The one.

One perfect solution out of more than fourteen million.

It could all go wrong. It could all go wrong so easily but Stephen knows what he has to do, finally.

Stephen reverts back to the start, finally breaking his hold on the Eye. The only reason he doesn’t fall flat on his face is because Tony is there to catch him.

“You’re ok. You’re alright.”

Stephen looks up and-no. Tony couldn’t possibly know all that Stephen has been through. He can’t. But it doesn’t matter. He knows the signs of trauma, of pain. It doesn’t matter what Stephen had said to him before, Tony immediately becomes protective, softer.

It hurts to breathe, Stephen’s own timeline broken and fractured inside him as he makes the smallest movement. But he looks up, at Drax and Mantis and the two Peters. They’ll be hurt, they all will have to go through some form of hell, especially Tony, but they’ll survive this. He’s made sure of that.

Stephen hadn’t expected to care, for any of them. At the most, this had started as a professional courtesy. But no, his own ego had been broken. This isn’t centered around him, and uncaringly letting others die, sacrificing them for his own goals? That wasn’t how they won either. That was how Thanos won, only caring about results but not the people who’d be affected by them.

Stephen’s a little loath to admit it, but in those fourteen million lives, he had needed a great more growth than he would have thought.

Now that he’s out of the loops and possible futures, now that everything is finally coming to an end, Stephen wishes he could tell Tony so badly, to warn him of what is to come. But he’d tried that already. It would only make things worse.

So instead he watches as they formulate their plan. He watches as Peter learns the truth about Gamora, watches as Tony is stabbed and all seems lost. And then Stephen does the unthinkable. No one understands, not yet, but Stephen hands over the stone without question and he knows that he’s done it. They’re on the right path.

That fact makes the next few minutes a little easier but not by much as he watches those around him die and turn to dust. He feels himself being stripped from the universe, but this time it’s far more peaceful than anything that had happened in the possible futures. He’s not out living this, not forcing his soul to continue on like he had in a desperate attempt to see the long term side effects of those futures.

The pain and fatigue, his broken timeline, they drift away with him as he looks at Tony and knows that he can do it. Tony still doesn’t understand, but he will.

“We’re in the end game now.”

And like that, he’s at peace.

* * *

Stephen wakes up in bed, dazed and confused. He pushes himself up on his pillow, his head spinning and everything feeling slightly off. What…what happened? He can remember that he was getting ready to buy lunch, and he was complaining that Wong didn’t have any real money on him, and then after…why is his mind blank?

He’s tired and doesn’t bother getting into his robes with a snap of his fingers. He sticks with sweats and his shirt, incredibly undignified but at the moment he could care less. Since he’s just in the Sanctorum, the Cloak isn’t glamoured and it quickly flies over. It’s more clingy than usual and for the life of him, Stephen can’t understand why—

A snap. When referring to his ability to instantly change clothes if needed, it had been more an expression than what he literally did. But just that phrase, a snap of his fingers…why did it make his blood run cold?

“Wong?”

There’s no answer as Stephen makes his way through the halls, the Cloak hugging his form the entire way.

No one answers and eventually, Stephen decides to make a pot of tea. He could use magic, but he’s so tired that making it by hand is honestly easier. Similar to how one's muscles ache after a hard day working out, his magic feels eerily similar though no memories come back to explain the fatigue.

He makes his pot, is ready to sit down with the steaming cup when a name flashs through his head like a bullet.

Thanos.

The cup falls, shattering against the ground as he feels the Cloak tremble and wrap around him. Stephen just barely keeps himself from falling. He’s trembling as he leans against the wall and—

Mantis.

He was being attacked. Stephen is sure of it! Some magical entity is trying infiltrate his mind, his very being and he couldn’t fight back! Why couldn’t he! Wong! Where is—

Peter Parker, the kid.

Stephen collapses to the ground. Names and events and faces and death pass before his eyes. The past attacks his very soul, his astral body as he feels millions of years passing through him in mere minutes.

“Strange!”

The voice is distant but when Stephen feels someone gripping him, he just holds on with all his might. The visions-no memories begin to fade but not the feelings that are etched into his soul. His fractured timeline, each strike that Thanos had done to him, each death, the pain of seeing Drax and Peter Parker and Mantis and Peter Quill and—

“Tony!”

He tries to push himself to his feet but he can’t, not alone. Instead, the Cloak and Wong lift him up, even when his knees try to buckle again.

“Easy there. Are you back Stephen?” asks Wong with a piercing look.

“I…is…Tony.”

“Yes, Stark did tell me of what you foolishly did,” Wong sighs though his gaze grows just a little softer. “You’re lucky you didn’t rip yourself into a million different versions.”

Stephen shakes his head though. “No-I mean…him, the kid, Mantis I…I need to see them. I need—”

“Stark thought you might say that too if your memories returned.”

“If they returned?” Stephen frowns.

“Those that disappeared didn’t all regain their memories, though some know more than others. Mr. Parker for example remembers nothing, which I suppose is for the best,” sighs Wong. “You though, you were too tied to everything that happened. I expected it would hit you all at once, and so it did.”

Stephen shook his head, the oversaturation of information in his head making it almost difficult to concentrate. “Wait-wait Mr. Parker? You—”

“I’ve been with Stark for a while. I imagine I know a lot more than you would think.”

Yes…yes of course. In finding the perfect path, Wong had been there as well. Stephen remembers. But he also remembers the thin line that had separated them winning by Tony’s death and Tony surviving.

“I need to—”

“I know. Besides, they wanted me to get you anyways,” Wong interrupts before opening the portal.

Stephen can’t help but frown. If Wong can just open the portal without any added spells to find the place, then— “You’ve been to the Avengers’ HQ?”

“Only once in this timeline, but yes. Many times,” Wong replies. He keeps a firm grip on Stephen, the cloak too as they walk into the hallway.

Stephen should probably change, but he still can’t muster the energy so he just holds onto his friend and keeps the Cloak close.

“You said you’ve already been here. In this timeline. When—”

“Everything didn’t snap back immediately. People have been coming back at different times though by Stark’s estimates, everything should be completely righted in one more day. Time has needed time to heal. It couldn’t just fix everything in one go.”

“How ironic,” mutters Stephen as they finally stop at a room and head inside. Stephen’s eyes widen. He’s not sure what he expected but this—

“I thought doctors were supposed to be punctual,” snorts Tony. “And did you seriously not bother to get dressed? Come on, we’re doing a celebratory head count slash party and you can’t even get properly dressed?”

Everyone, they’re alive and there, even the Guardians, even Gamora. He sees Loki too, standing by his brother. They all look the same, just how they should except—

Tony. He’s older than them, at least four, maybe five years, side effects of actually traveling through time and not simply taking peaks at possible futures like Stephen did. His hair is lighter, his eyes sadder despite the jokes he’s throwing out.

“Tony, I’m sorry—”

“Doc, you set it in motion. You saved us. Cheer up a bit,” Tony continues as he places a hand on his shoulder. His eyes convey more though, complete understanding of what Stephen’s been through. He’s not being rude or trying to negate what he’s been through with his words, quite the opposite. Tony’s doing exactly what he did in every reality, being kind, compassionate, having his back even when Stephen didn’t ask for it or realize he needed that support.

Stephen had chosen right. They were alive. Tony was alive.

Stephen wasn’t one for hugs but he made an exception this time. “You saved us,” Stephen corrects.

“Ah, did you just admit my ego is bigger and better than yours?”

“Careful Tony, I am trying to be genuine,” Stephen replies. He bows his head to hide the smile toying at the corners of his lips. He’s amused though, not irritated by Tony’s words, and more than anything, just thankful they’re all alive.

“So does all this compassion mean you’ll be grumpy for the next five years to balance it out?” Wong asks with a sly smirk.

“This doesn’t count,” Stephen replies as he moves out of the embrace. The smile on his face is impossible to keep off though, even if it’s soft and small.

He still hurts and he imagines the healing of his own timeline will take time, not even accounting for the physical and mental trauma he has yet to deal with. But here, at least in this instance, he can breathe easily for the first time in fourteen millennias.

“Welcome to the Avengers,” Tony grins, and Stephen imagines he’s going through a similar process, knowing that the pain from trying to heal was just down the road. But in this moment, Tony would simply enjoy himself too. “Alright guys, let’s pass around some introductions and catch Stephanie up.”

“Alright, now you’re pushing it,” Stephen replies but Tony just smiles in return and Stephen can’t help but respond in the same way.


End file.
